OPINION: The Muslim problem facing Australia

by John Stone

News Weekly, July 22, 2006

Former Treasury Secretary John Stone warns that migrant Muslim communities are not integrating into Western societies.

I have written previously about Australia's Muslim problem. Despite the ever-mounting level of evidence, there appears to be very little recognition at the national political level in Australia of the clear and present danger confronting us.

One day, however, we shall experience a terrible national pain - awakening, for example, to the equivalent of the London bombings of last July, or the French riots. It will come from focusing on symptoms, rather than causes.

It is a problem that is similar to the Muslim problem in all Western countries where a significant immigrant Muslim minority has been allowed to become established. The only difference in Australia is that, because of our national advantages of distance from major population centres and the oceans that surround us, that minority has not yet grown to the "critical mass" proportions it has already reached in many other Western countries.

Extremists

We need to understand that the core of the Muslim problem lies in the essence of Islam itself. It is the problem of a culture that, for the past 500 years or so at least, has failed its adherents, falling further and further behind the West. It is that sense of cultural failure, that sense of smouldering resentment, that fuels the fires so busily stoked by the more extremist Muslim teachers.

One principal response to arguments of this kind has been to seek to distinguish between "moderate" Islam and "extremist" or "fundamentalist" Islam. It is said that, while we have to deal with the latter, in doing so we must be careful not to "marginalise" the former.

However, all followers of Islam, "moderate" or otherwise, divide the world into that part of the world where Islamic governments and Islamic law prevail, and the rest of the world, which to all Muslims is the house of war.

There is a clear distinction between the revelations Mohammed claimed to receive while in Mecca, and those which followed his later move to Medina. Those passages from the Koran that are often quoted by those seeking to show the "moderate" nature of Islam are all drawn from the earlier Mecca period, whereas the Koran of Medina is replete with the most blood-curdling injunctions to kill all infidels wherever they are found. So it may not be unreasonable to assume that the Koran of Medina overrides the Koran of Mecca where any inconsistencies are concerned.

In addition, the Islamic doctrine of "taqiyya" is the doctrine whereby any lies, deceit or other forms of treachery may be justified in defeating the infidel. When one reads the soothing words of our own Islamic "moderates", the doctrine of "taqiyya" should be remembered.

More generally, I believe the evidence is incontrovertible that Islamic and Western cultures are today, within any single polity, incompatible. If a thesis along these lines is accepted, what is to be done about Australia's existing, and rapidly growing, Muslim community? Let me begin, though, with a few basic propositions:

If we focus on those three objectives, namely setting out to virtually halt legal Muslim immigration, rendering citizenship much tougher to obtain (not only for Muslims) and cracking down even harder on illegal entry of both Muslims and non-Muslims, there are many things we can and should do. Here are a few of them:

• One wholly non-discriminatory measure which could, however, have the result of deterring Muslim applications for admission would be to require all applicants to receive, accept the contents of, and sign a formal governmental statement of those aspects of our national life to which we expect all newcomers to conform.

• We should withdraw from the International Convention on Refugees. This does not mean that we should stop taking in refugees. It does mean that we would choose who they are to be.

• There should be an immediate major reform and reshaping of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, as follows:

1) Formally recognise that this department is now integral to our national security and staff it accordingly.

2) Change its name to the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs.

3) Jettison all its current programs of official multiculturalism.

4) Suspend all those programs currently being run by the department that effectively provide "back door" means of entry into Australia.

5) Revoke the licences of all private immigration agents, who do not operate in the national interest.

Do I think that any of these suggestions will find acceptance by any of our major political parties? I do not know, although so long as Mr Howard remains Prime Minister there is possibly a chance of his government doing so.

This article is a short extract of a talk by former Treasury Secretary and senator, John Stone, at a Quadrant dinner on June 28, 2006.